


Running to Stand Still

by PrinceSnarking



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Abuse, F/M, Heroin, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, drug overdose, heroin overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 15:38:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceSnarking/pseuds/PrinceSnarking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock closed his eyes and pushed the plunger down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running to Stand Still

**Author's Note:**

> Suicide (Suicide Attempt?), deliberate drug overdose and heroin use. Obviously potentially triggering.

Human life is inherently fragile. The smallest thing could end it. A human being could drown with barely any water, could trip down a small set of stairs and break their body, could become too cold and catch a simple illness that could end their life. When taking in the fact that life was so quickly ended, it made one wonder the concept of life itself. Was there an actual meaning to life? Not inherently. There was no cosmic dictator in the sky, no destiny to be played out and met. No, people had to make their own meaning in life.  
  
But what happened when they felt displaced?  
  
Sherlock Holmes was facing that predicament. To feel displaced, to feel as though you were no longer needed by those that you held closest to you, that feeling was death in itself. John no longer needed him. He had Mary. He had a _daughter_ on the way. He had his own life, and Sherlock could not expect him to give that up. No, more than anything, Sherlock didn't _want_ him to give that up.  
  
And he knew that John would not be safe as long as he was around.  
  
Sherlock contemplated taking off. Packing and leaving without a word. But he knew that wasn't an option. Moriarty was back, and would be wanting to continue their game from where it left off. But what if Sherlock refused to play? What if Sherlock decided to write his own role?  
  
Sherlock always did hate being assigned what role to play.  
  
He stood by his window, watching the busy street below, a lit cigarette dangling in his hand. He closed his eyes, letting out sigh before bringing the lit cigarette to his lips, drawing in smoke and exhaling, fogging the glass of the window with his breathe and smoke. He brought up his other hand, drawing a smiley face in the fogged glass before decidedly smearing it away.  
  
He really was a ridiculous man.  
  
How many times he had been the envy of those he knew, who wished they could look into his mind, see what caused his gifts and skills. And how many times he had to stop himself from snorting in amusement. No one would ever return the same if they saw into his mind. The conflicting thoughts, the self doubt, self loathing in some cases. The utter self _hate_ that he contained, pushed outward and projected onto others. The words that seemed to come alive, written on various objects in the air. His mind was a puzzle that even he could not solve. And he _hated_ it.  
  
He hated it almost as much as he hated the feeling of being unneeded. Really, John would have been better off if he never came back. Everyone would have been better if he never came back, if he _had_ died that day on the concrete in front of St. Bart's Hospital, if he had died during those two years as he worked to make sure everyone was safe.  
  
And he even failed then, didn't he? Moriarty was back. As long as Sherlock lived, no one was safe. He was unneeded, self hating, and was putting everyone he cared for in danger. Not a very good combination.  
  
And that was how Sherlock found himself sitting in John's old armchair, almost as though in a trance, unaware of his actions. The drug was heating in the spoon he held, the lighter underneath the bending metal, up until he brought it to a slight boil. Drawing it up through a small cotton swab into the syringe, he looked at the amount of the drug. _  
_  
Just enough to send him into an overdose. Just enough to kill him.  
  
He set the drawn up syringe on the coffee table, standing from the armchair and stuck his head out to look down the staircase. Mrs. Hudson was in her flat. She probably wouldn't come up to see him until later that night, or early the next morning. Plenty of time to die. He supposed he felt a bit remorseful that Mrs. Hudson would most likely be finding him, but with the slight amount of too much of the heroin that was in the syringe, the paramedics would most likely rule it as an accidental overdose.  
  
No need to have the others believe it was a suicide. Sherlock miscalculating the drug would be easier for them to deal with than Sherlock killing himself. There would be no note. No sign of what it really was.  
  
Sherlock shut his door and went back to his seat, his knees coming to his chest in his perched position in John's old chair, and he tied the tourniquet around his arm. His thumb graced over the raised skin, pushing down to irritate the vein and make it raise, the blue of the vein popping up, visible through his pale skin. His mind was racing, and yet numb all at the same time as he pushed the tip of the needle into his vein, the lack of pain a sign that he found the vein perfectly. He untied the tourniquet, letting it fall to the ground. His thumb paused over the end of the plunger, his blue eyes focused on only the place where the needle met the vein. Right now was his only chance to change his mind. This was the last moment.  
  
Sherlock closed his eyes and pushed the plunger down.  
  
Sherlock gasped, his eyes opening, and he pulled the needle from his skin, small dropplets of blood pooling on the top of the crook of his forearm, and he dropped the needle that contained only blood and heroin residue. The intense high rushed to Sherlock's brain, the feeling of euphoria being a forgotten experience. It was almost as though he had reached his first high, and he realized how many drug addicts easily overdosed. The more of the drug, the closer they got to the first high, and even as an atheist, Sherlock could say that it was as though kissing the mouth of the creator.  
  
Too bad it wouldn't last.  
  
Within moments of the euphoria, it was replaced with utter pain. His body shook, his muscles spazzing, and he gasped, curling over and falling out of the armchair, hitting the ground. Sherlock dry retched, nothing obviously coming up on the carpet, but the sounds of the action echoing in his ears. It was shocking, really, how quickly an overdose caused an effect, and soon, Sherlock could not even keep himself up on his hands and knees. He fell to his side, now having been reduced to sweating, retching, and shaking, feeling as though his entire body was on fire.  
  
His body was on fire and no water would be able to put it out.  
  
He tried to calm himself, to block the pain, to accept the pain, to remind himself that it would be over soon, but he __hated it. Why did he choose heroin? A bullet would have been quicker. Maybe he just really was a glutton for punishment.  
  
He let out another retch as his eyelids grew heavy, and the sounds of his own retching became muted to his ears. His surroundings were intensified even as his vision darkened, and he could have sworn he heard footsteps – John footsteps - as his vision turned completely black. 


End file.
